The present invention relates to a telematic monitoring system for vehicles.
Telematic appliances are known which, once installed on board a vehicle, are able to detect the modes of use of the vehicle itself over time.
Such appliances find application, e.g. in the insurance field, for the determination of customized rates on the basis of the actual use of the vehicle, in the environmental field, for the real-time detection of the polluting emissions of a vehicle, or in the vehicle rental management, in order to achieve greater automation of procedures for the pricing, pickup and delivery of vehicles.
The appliances of known type generally comprise a local exchange which can be installed on board the vehicle, inside the compartment, and connectable to the electronics of the vehicle itself.
Such appliances also comprise a radio-wave device, of the type commonly used in the mobile phone field such as, e.g., a GSM, GPRS, UMTS transceiver or the like. The radio-wave device, in particular, supports the sending of information gathered by the appliance to a remote data processing and storage unit.
Eventually, the radio-wave device is employed for receiving, from the remote unit, updates of the management software and/or suitable parameterizations of the appliance on board the vehicle.
These appliances generally also comprise a satellite receiver, the type of a GPS receiver or the like, which allows for the localization of the vehicle using the detected coordinates of latitude, longitude and, possibly, altitude.
In practice, the operation of the appliance involves the gathering, at regular time intervals, of information relating to the position of the vehicle via the GPS receiver and the subsequent transmission of such information to the remote unit by means of the radio-wave device.
The information gathered this way by the remote unit is then processed for the determination of useful data for the specific area of application.
More information can be gathered by the appliance through the use of additional devices such as, e.g., an accelerometer mounted on the vehicle and able to detect bumps and sudden accelerations and decelerations.
The accelerometer, in particular, can be employed in the insurance field to determine the way an accident occurs and, therefore, the responsibilities involved with it.
These appliances of known type, however, are susceptible to improvements, aimed in particular to improve the quality and accuracy of the detected information.
Additionally, the installation of the appliance on the vehicle is often long and complex.
In general, in fact, the local exchange must be installed inside the compartment of the vehicle, in correspondence of the dashboard, and must be suitably connected to the electronics of the vehicle.
This installation procedure of the local exchange requires a long time thus increasing, accordingly, the related labor costs.